Category Archives: Ireland

Steorn insanity

Leave a Reply

Scienceblogs.com has an article up detailing how creationists have latched onto Steorn’s free energy device (which has yet to work) as “evidence against materialism”.

As quoted from overwhelmingevidence.com:

Steorn’s findings totally undermine the basic premise of materialism, simply by demonstrating a confirmed physical effect that materialists predict cannot happen. These clever Irish researchers have demonstrated that the principles of thermodynamics function in a manner far closer to the predictions of William Dembski and William Brookfield than the clearly flawed thermodynamic claims of Hawkings and Maxwell.

The same scientists who tell you that Intelligent Design is impossible also dispute the hard-facts of Steorn’s peer-reviewed findings. I predict that this humble contraption will show the world just how much materialists have misled mainstream-science.

Sweet zombie Jesus. Did I wake up in crazy town?

Steorn’s Orbo device was supposed to have been unveiled online on July 5, but due to technical difficulties which were “primarily due to excessive heat from the lighting in the main display area” the streaming video and public exhibition have been cancelled.

The streaming video — which showed the Orbo device on a table surrounded by five computers in an otherwise empty room — was up and running earlier in the week at this URL, but surfing there now redirects to the company’s news section.

A hint of sense

Leave a Reply

Environment Minister John Gormley is to review how Ireland protects its heritage sites.

Thank Christ. As the ireland.com article illustrates, several sites that should have been national monuments have been destroyed in recent times.

We’re about to lose another one due to Dick Roche’s parting shot (he was demoted back to Junior Minister for Europe). Sadly, Gormley says he does not have the power to overturn his predecessor’s decision to allow a motorway be built on the site of a monument thousands of years old.

I can only hope his National Landscape Strategy will be one that can be put into practice rather than some political drivel. There’s nothing more infuriating for me than people being seen to do something while in reality they’re not doing a goddam thing.

Charity meme

Leave a Reply

Gavin tagged me, so:

And so I tag:

Harry

Félim

Rick

Mick

Dan

Damn you Dick Roche

2 Replies

This post may be a couple of days late but fuck it. I need to get this off my chest.

For readers unfamiliar with Irish politics, Roche was Ireland’s Environment Minister until last week when he was demoted to a junior ministry following a general election.

He’s now my least favourite politician because his last act as a Cabinet minister was to give the green light to build a motorway through one of Ireland’s richest archaeological regions.

Before we go any further here he is, the focus of my bile:

mindickroche2.GIF

The motorway will pass less than a mile from the Hill of Tara, a site of enormous historical and mythological importance. In folk tales it was the home of the high kings of Ireland, and it is believed to have been a major ceremonial site for various royal families in the north of the country.

Tara was put on the World Monument Fund’s crisis list only a couple of weeks ago.

I could live with it were that the limit of Roche’s actions.

However, earlier this year a vast site was discovered. This henge, which dates back to the late Bronze Age, was a site of outdoor worship. The Lismullen site was declared a national monument shortly after it was found and Roche ordered work on the M3 to be stopped.

But last week Roche, who says he consulted with the director the national museum, Dr Pat Wallace, decided this national monument should be “preserved by record” and the motorway built on top of it. “Preservation by record” involves archaeological sites or monuments being removed and photographic and written records made before construction begins.

I can appreciate the need for the roadworks. The nation’s infrastructure needs it. But to obliterate so much history is too high a price to pay. Imagine removing a couple of pyramids to make way for a highway across the Giza Plateau (and before I’m accused of exaggerating, many of the monuments in the Tara region are contemporaneous with the Egyptian sites).

Roche’s actions were a blatant attempt to undermine his successor as Environment Minister, John Gormley of the Green Party.

What really got to me though was Roche’s smugness. He said it would have been “mean-spirited” to leave such a “thorny decision” to an incoming minister.

I think in fact any minister sitting in my office in Custom House making the decision on the basis of that file would have made the decision I have made. I did the man some service by not passing the buck to him.

Dick, how can you breathe when your head is that far up your asshole?

Gormley, who had campaigned against the motorway, says he may be unable to reverse his predecessor’s decision. However, the Labour Party has claimed Gormley does indeed have the power.

So Dick — or Cock Roache as one graffiti artist rechristened you on an election poster — I hope you’re happy. I take some satisfaction that you’re back on the junior benches, but it doesn’t really take the sting out of the incalculable damage you’ve done to the nation’s heritage.

Damn you Dick Roche.

Bus trip

2 Replies

An elderly man sat across the aisle from me on the bus yesterday.

There’s nothing unusual in that, per se. But this was an unusual man.

I’m not sure if he was drunk or simply strange, but he kept asking me questions. I didn’t realise it at first, because I was listening to music; my earphones are sound-reducing. God knows what the other passengers thought of me, sitting there while a guy tried to engage me in conversation. But they weren’t the kind of questions travellers normally ask one another. Not “how are you?” or “what time is it?”, but “where does this bus go?”

“It goes past the school, then on to the city,” I said.

He looked blankly at me. “Cork city?”

I nodded politely. My interior monologue said: “No, Belfast.” (There are times when I wonder what it would be like to speak my mind at any given moment, then remind myself I wouldn’t want to live in such a world.)

“Where does it stop?”

“South Mall.”

“Where?”

“The South Mall.”

He seemed to mutter absently for much of the trip; the fact that I could make out the noise (but not the detail) while wearing my earphones seems to imply he was being pretty loud.

The schoolkids got on and the old man was drowned out. But about five or six stops later most of them were gone and the aisle between me and the aul fella was clear again. I was sitting there, listening to music and utterly oblivious to the world around me, including him.

I don’t know how long he’d been trying to get my attention. He didn’t gesture at me in a bid to catch my eye, he just kept calling out. Eventually I twigged that someone was talking to me.

He smiled at me with yellow teeth worn down to nubs. “Are we in Cork yet?”

“No, two more stops.”

“What?”

“Two more stops.”

“Oh. Will you tell me when?”

“Sure.”

“What?”

“I’ll tell you, it’s okay.”

I dimly wondered what kind of life this man had led if he didn’t recognise Cork or realise the bus went there (it’s the last stop on this particular route). But I was in work mode and was largely lost in thoughts of what I had to do. Perhaps I should have asked him, but it never occurred to me.

As the bus trundled along George’s Quay I anticipated the guy’s next request.

“Are we in Cork yet?”

“It’s the next stop, but you can get out here if you like.”

“What?”

“You can get out here. It’s near the South Mall.”

“I’ll get out here so. Thank you, man.”

I hadn’t realised how frail the fellow was. He was wearing a sling yellowed with either sweat or cigarette smoke, although it was hanging around his neck and not supporting his arm. He was almost bent over double as he shuffled his way down the aisle of the bus and down the steps.

I couldn’t see exactly what happened next, but I think he fell. The driver leaped from his seat and down the steps after the old man. I don’t know where he went or how he got there. I wonder if I’ll see him again.

Descendents have a song called “When I Get Old”:

As I travel through my time / will I like what I find? / What will it be like / when I get old?

I don’t want to be that old man. But then, if I were to get into that state, would I be aware of it? And if I was, at 70 years of age, would I care? The 20-something me does, though. Perhaps I’m just a proud man, or perhaps I just like to be in control of my faculties. But I really mean it. I don’t want to be that old man.